The Case for Strong Parties

Washington’s Farewell Address

• The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

• It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

What’s good about parties?

What’s a strong party?

APSA Report, 1950

Positive functions of parties(from APSA)

• Help people hold the government accountable

• Forge compromises among interests

Ideal party

• Effective and responsible

– Cohesive

– Programmatic

• Effective opposition party

Didn’t have the ideal model in 1950

• Senate/House/National/State/Local parties all have different leaders and strategies

• National Convention and Committee not policymaking bodies• Ambiguous membership• No coherent ideology or platform• Little unity of those in office

• Why?• Voluntary association• Federalism • Parties particularly ideologically divided in 1950

Presidential Elections 1876-88

Presidential Elections 1892-1904

Presidential Elections 1908-1920

Presidential Elections 1924-1936

Presidential Elections 1940-1952

7 Southern Republicans, 1960

• Mountain Republicans:– Howard Baker, Eastern Tennessee– B. Carroll Reece, Eastern Tennessee– Richard Poff, Southwestern Virginia– Charles Jonas, Blue Ridge North Carolina

• Centers of Northern Migration:– William Cramer, St. Petersburg, FL– Bruce Alger, suburban Dallas– Joel Broyhill, suburban DC, Virginia

Percent of all votes on which a majority of Democrats vote against a majority of Republicans

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962

House

Senate

House party unity (percentage of members voting with a majority of their party

on party unity votes)

66

68

70

72

74

76

78

80

82

84

86

1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1962

Republicans

Democrats

Prescriptions

• A smaller governing body

• Regional conferences and internal democracy

• Stronger national party infrastructure

• Platform more binding

• More party unity and responsibility in Congress

• Closed primaries, no cross filing

• What’s different today?

• Do we have closer to the responsible party model? In what ways?

• In what ways do we not?